On a recent family trip to Barcelona, Spain, I was fortunate enough to get away for an evening and spend six hours exploring the city with Aperture Tours. This was my third experience with Aperture, following previous photography tours in London and Paris, and once again I came away having had a wonderful experience—and with far more photographs that I was happy with than I expected. For this tour, my guide was Emily, and she was absolutely fantastic. Before we started, I showed Emily some of my photography and explained what I hoped to get out of our time together. Barcelona is an incredibly vibrant and busy city, and after spending some time there I was having trouble cutting through all of that visual noise and finding my own photographic vision. I wanted to concentrate primarily on architecture and street photography and, more than anything, find a different way of seeing the city. Emily understood exactly what I was looking for. We explored areas including Ciutat Vella, the Gothic Quarter, Estació de França, Parc de l’Estació del Nord, and plenty of streets and places in between. Rather than simply following a predetermined route, the evening evolved as we went. Emily adapted to what interested me, helped us stay away from some of the heavier crowds, identified subjects and opportunities I might otherwise have missed, and allowed my own expectations for the evening to evolve as we explored. What really made this tour special, though, was Emily herself. When we met and I saw that she had brought her own camera, I was immediately excited. In all of the photography tours I have taken over the years, it has been surprisingly rare to have a guide who is also actively making photographs alongside me. That completely changed the dynamic of the evening. Instead of feeling like I was simply being led around Barcelona by someone showing me where to take photographs, it felt much more like walking around the city with a friend and fellow photographer. Emily would notice something and make a photograph; I would find something completely different. We shared ideas, compared what we were seeing, occasionally looked at each other’s images, and talked about why something caught our attention. Her passion for street photography was obvious, and it made the experience that much more enjoyable. Emily also did an excellent job of recognizing my experience level. She never treated the tour as though I needed to be taught how to use my camera, but she also never assumed there wasn’t anything she could offer technically. She shared suggestions when they were appropriate and reminded me of techniques and habits that I once knew very well but, somewhere over the years, had stopped thinking about as much as I should. That balance allowed us to spend less time talking about camera settings and more time concentrating on where we were, what was happening around us, and where the next photograph might be. By the end of the six hours, I had experienced parts of Barcelona differently than I would have on my own and came away with many photographs that I am genuinely excited about. More importantly, I felt like I had started to get past the noise and find the Barcelona I had been struggling to see photographically. After three tours with Aperture Tours in three very different cities, I have continued to be impressed by the quality of their guides and the experiences they provide. My evening in Barcelona with Emily was no exception—in fact, it was one of those photographic experiences that reminded me how enjoyable it can be to simply walk through a city with a camera, stay open to what you find, and share that experience with another photographer. If you are visiting Barcelona and looking for a photography tour, I would absolutely recommend Aperture Tours. And if you have the opportunity, request Emily. I certainly would again.
We are thrilled that our photographer could provide that collaborative, peer to peer experience you were looking for. It means the world to us that we could be part of your favorite travel memories once again, and we cannot wait to explore another city with you on your next trip.
